That would be the fifty dollars I paid the nice men with a truck who came today and hauled away the probably defunct portable dishwasher from the townhouse, as well as the two bedroom doors I'm planning on replacing. To the dump with them, I say!
Renovations are proceeding. The two bedrooms and the main floor, with the exception of the hall, are all primed. Tomorrow we start painting in earnest. I have to say, my arms are feeling the effects of painting all day. However, if we paint all day tomorrow, and if my niece graces us with her presence and assistance, then by Monday I will be able to finish up with the trim in both bedrooms.
Meanwhile, there is packing to do. As weary and sore as I am, I have to push myself to pack up at least four or five boxes tonight. I will be so glad when this is all over, and I am in my nice new little home!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I *HEART* Rona!
It is my go-to store. My home renovation store. My tools and tips store. My we-need-this-so-run-and-buy-it store. They should pay me to be in one of their commercials, I tell you. Since every time I turn around that little cartoon cash register is going "Cha-Ching!", I am glad Rona is getting my money. Lordy, they even sell curtains!!!
So enough about Rona. Here's the update on the townhouse renovation. The wallpaper, except for two areas about 2.5 feet wide each, is gone. I rented a wallpaper steamer (guess where?) and Groom_Leader displayed his previously-undiscovered talent for employing said tool to remove that godawful wall covering. Over 8 hours were spent in this task yesterday. When I returned the steamer this morning, I discovered that the nice man who rented it to me yesterday was only charging me $20.00 for the day's rental. What a sweetie!
Today was "dump" day - Groom_Leader schlepped the car battery and three other boxes of old small appliances and electronics to the Eco Station for me, then we loaded both our cars and delivered all the boxes to Goodwill. Tomorrow is a day off from the reno project - I am going to go for a walk with my sweetie, then I have a meeting from noon until two. After I get home, my niece, who is student-teaching at a school not too far from my current apartment, is going to drop by and hang out until she has to return to the school for an informational open house.
Thursday is plumbing day - and while the plumber is doing his thing, my capable assistant and I will be stripping (with remover gel) the last of the wallpaper, then beginning the top-to-bottom scrubbing of the place. Friday, I hope to be able to buy the paint and start priming some of the walls. Oh, and we're going to remove the bedroom doors and store them in the shed. Since I live alone, I can wait for a month or so before buying new doors at you-know-where and having them installed. I'm thinking of buying those old-fashioned looking glass doorknobs for them.
Everything else is on track - I have carpet cleaning scheduled for the 27th, and the move-out inspection will be done at 8 p.m. on the 30th. The caretaker had arranged for tradesmen to come in on the morning of the 30th to rip up the carpets and lino and replace them - and she had no idea, at that time, of what date I was moving out. So let's see, she was going to have trades entering and working in an occupied, full apartment. I stopped that with a call to the Landlord and Tenant Advisory Board, followed by a conversation with said dimwit caretaker. The workmen have been rescheduled for the morning of the 31st, after I have handed back the keys and shaken the dust of this pesthole off my feet.
One thing that really helped get the moving stuff in hand was sitting down and writing out a timeline - day by day, task by task. I feel more in control of the process now, I have a map to follow. Funny how we can reduce our stress level by relying on old, familiar habits.
And I still *HEART* Rona.
So enough about Rona. Here's the update on the townhouse renovation. The wallpaper, except for two areas about 2.5 feet wide each, is gone. I rented a wallpaper steamer (guess where?) and Groom_Leader displayed his previously-undiscovered talent for employing said tool to remove that godawful wall covering. Over 8 hours were spent in this task yesterday. When I returned the steamer this morning, I discovered that the nice man who rented it to me yesterday was only charging me $20.00 for the day's rental. What a sweetie!
Today was "dump" day - Groom_Leader schlepped the car battery and three other boxes of old small appliances and electronics to the Eco Station for me, then we loaded both our cars and delivered all the boxes to Goodwill. Tomorrow is a day off from the reno project - I am going to go for a walk with my sweetie, then I have a meeting from noon until two. After I get home, my niece, who is student-teaching at a school not too far from my current apartment, is going to drop by and hang out until she has to return to the school for an informational open house.
Thursday is plumbing day - and while the plumber is doing his thing, my capable assistant and I will be stripping (with remover gel) the last of the wallpaper, then beginning the top-to-bottom scrubbing of the place. Friday, I hope to be able to buy the paint and start priming some of the walls. Oh, and we're going to remove the bedroom doors and store them in the shed. Since I live alone, I can wait for a month or so before buying new doors at you-know-where and having them installed. I'm thinking of buying those old-fashioned looking glass doorknobs for them.
Everything else is on track - I have carpet cleaning scheduled for the 27th, and the move-out inspection will be done at 8 p.m. on the 30th. The caretaker had arranged for tradesmen to come in on the morning of the 30th to rip up the carpets and lino and replace them - and she had no idea, at that time, of what date I was moving out. So let's see, she was going to have trades entering and working in an occupied, full apartment. I stopped that with a call to the Landlord and Tenant Advisory Board, followed by a conversation with said dimwit caretaker. The workmen have been rescheduled for the morning of the 31st, after I have handed back the keys and shaken the dust of this pesthole off my feet.
One thing that really helped get the moving stuff in hand was sitting down and writing out a timeline - day by day, task by task. I feel more in control of the process now, I have a map to follow. Funny how we can reduce our stress level by relying on old, familiar habits.
And I still *HEART* Rona.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Creating Chaos From Chaos
Or, how I started the monumental task of reducing my packrat's hoard of THINGS that I own.
I am in the process of Freecycling the townhouse's dishwasher, the big black and glass shelving/display case that we removed from the living room wall (previously mounted the perfect height at which I would bean my head on the corner of it every time I rounded the corner from the dining area, incidentally), and have found a Freecycle recipient for the frou-frou fancy collectible doll that a co-worker gave me years ago.
My buddy came over today (after we tried out the Jumbo Dim Sum restaurant) and did the grunt work while I sorted and stacked the contents of the storage bin out in the hall. We're talking a space the size of a small bathroom, which had been filled to the ceiling (literally, folks) with boxes. In the end, we tossed 3 bags of garbage (Contractor's Glad garbage bags, no less), there are 2 boxes of old appliances to go to the Eco Station (goodbye to my late grandmother's two-door toaster and ancient electric waffle iron, neither used in over two decades), 12 boxes and a decorator table with glass topper for Goodwill. What I kept wouldn't even fill one 2-cubic-foot box. How's that for drastic culling?
I'm going to pack up some more of the living room knick-knacks tonight while I listen to TV, and tomorrow my trusty buddy and I are going to enter the mystifying and wild world of wallpaper steaming. I really pray that does the trick with that deity-awful wallpaper. Tuesday will be Eco Station & Goodwill dropoff, and I will pack what I can manage of the storage room here in the apartment. Wednesday is for cleaning the condo - dust, vacuum, and then we will begin to scrubscrubscrubscrubscrub! Damn, that woman, that so-called church lady, really was a slob. Hello, Dimwit, ever hear the one about cleanliness being next to Godliness?I do have to take a break from 12 to 2 p.m. for a mandatory work meeting, but that's about it, and we will have my boyfriend to help.
Thursday the plumber is coming, plus the complex's plumber will be shutting off the water to about half the townhouses so that the wrecked shutoff T for my main water supply can be replaced. Then my plumber will set to work; he has to replace the shutoff Ts on the two toilets, replace the upstairs toilet, and the sink in the downstairs bathroom. I figure it will be about a $600 -700.00 day. While the nice plumber is working, my buddy and I will be priming walls for painting. I have decided to reduce the workload a bit - I priced interior doors at Rona, and for about $160.00, I can buy new doors for both bedrooms, rather than repainting them. Friday and the weekend will be spent painting.........the bedrooms, including the closet in the master, the hall and the entry closet, and the living room. I will be painting the kitchen cabinets and doors/drawer fronts, but after I've moved in.
One thing that's working in my favor - my opthalmologist has ordered me off work until the 20th. He's not thrilled that I am going back to work then, he'd rather I took a break from the computer and paperwork my job involves for two weeks, but I can't leave the hospital in the lurch for that long. It's hard covering my shifts, as our pool of casuals has dwindled to two. The cataract surgery was a breeze, I have had practically no discomfort postoperatively, and there is slow improvement in my visual acuity on that side, a bit more every day. I am still sensitive to daylight, so I wear the (very Terminator-looking) shades whenever I go outside.
So, watch this space for the next barely-thrilling installment of the saga of La Casita de Luna Azul.
I am in the process of Freecycling the townhouse's dishwasher, the big black and glass shelving/display case that we removed from the living room wall (previously mounted the perfect height at which I would bean my head on the corner of it every time I rounded the corner from the dining area, incidentally), and have found a Freecycle recipient for the frou-frou fancy collectible doll that a co-worker gave me years ago.
My buddy came over today (after we tried out the Jumbo Dim Sum restaurant) and did the grunt work while I sorted and stacked the contents of the storage bin out in the hall. We're talking a space the size of a small bathroom, which had been filled to the ceiling (literally, folks) with boxes. In the end, we tossed 3 bags of garbage (Contractor's Glad garbage bags, no less), there are 2 boxes of old appliances to go to the Eco Station (goodbye to my late grandmother's two-door toaster and ancient electric waffle iron, neither used in over two decades), 12 boxes and a decorator table with glass topper for Goodwill. What I kept wouldn't even fill one 2-cubic-foot box. How's that for drastic culling?
I'm going to pack up some more of the living room knick-knacks tonight while I listen to TV, and tomorrow my trusty buddy and I are going to enter the mystifying and wild world of wallpaper steaming. I really pray that does the trick with that deity-awful wallpaper. Tuesday will be Eco Station & Goodwill dropoff, and I will pack what I can manage of the storage room here in the apartment. Wednesday is for cleaning the condo - dust, vacuum, and then we will begin to scrubscrubscrubscrubscrub! Damn, that woman, that so-called church lady, really was a slob. Hello, Dimwit, ever hear the one about cleanliness being next to Godliness?I do have to take a break from 12 to 2 p.m. for a mandatory work meeting, but that's about it, and we will have my boyfriend to help.
Thursday the plumber is coming, plus the complex's plumber will be shutting off the water to about half the townhouses so that the wrecked shutoff T for my main water supply can be replaced. Then my plumber will set to work; he has to replace the shutoff Ts on the two toilets, replace the upstairs toilet, and the sink in the downstairs bathroom. I figure it will be about a $600 -700.00 day. While the nice plumber is working, my buddy and I will be priming walls for painting. I have decided to reduce the workload a bit - I priced interior doors at Rona, and for about $160.00, I can buy new doors for both bedrooms, rather than repainting them. Friday and the weekend will be spent painting.........the bedrooms, including the closet in the master, the hall and the entry closet, and the living room. I will be painting the kitchen cabinets and doors/drawer fronts, but after I've moved in.
One thing that's working in my favor - my opthalmologist has ordered me off work until the 20th. He's not thrilled that I am going back to work then, he'd rather I took a break from the computer and paperwork my job involves for two weeks, but I can't leave the hospital in the lurch for that long. It's hard covering my shifts, as our pool of casuals has dwindled to two. The cataract surgery was a breeze, I have had practically no discomfort postoperatively, and there is slow improvement in my visual acuity on that side, a bit more every day. I am still sensitive to daylight, so I wear the (very Terminator-looking) shades whenever I go outside.
So, watch this space for the next barely-thrilling installment of the saga of La Casita de Luna Azul.
Monday, March 05, 2007
The Work Continues.........
Well, every built-in, bracket, nail, screw, bolt and fixture that I wanted removed from the walls has been. My two sturdy peon........er, helpers managed to spindle, fold, and mutilate everything into small enough shapes to fit into XL garbage bags. We're talking venetian blinds plus tracks, a pre-fab type chipboard shelving unit as well as all of the built-in desk pieces from the loft (except the L-shaped 7' x 3' desktop, which is laying flat on the floor of the crawl space). All taken out to the dumpster and disposed of. Amazing, the destructive power contained in a couple of beer-fueled fellows!
The wallpaper - well, I learned today that Home Depot and Rona both rent wallpaper steamers. Being a proud Canadian, I'd rather go with Rona. That will have to wait until after my upcoming eye surgery on Thursday, recuperation over the weekend, and the three evening shifts after that. Also due on the 15th is the plumber, to fix my various plumbing issues. So, Groom_Leader and I will steam off the wallpaper and smooth the walls while the plumber plumbs.
The day after plumbing-and-steaming day will be paint purchasing and a thorough, extreme cleaning - there is 4 to 5 years' worth of dust on the ceiling fans, the wall light fixtures, crud and grunge inside cupboards, walls to wash down, etc. Then we will have three days to prime and paint, two of those days with the added assistance of my niece (and maybe her boyfriend). Meanwhile, when I'm not working on the townhouse, I'll be packing. And packing and packing and packing.
Moving day is March 28 - once painting is done, I'll get a steam cleaner in for the carpets, and will pre-clean some of the worst-stained areas with something deadly strong from the store. I'll also be taking a lot of smaller loads over myself, both to reduce total moving crew time and to ensure my preciousest stuff gets there safely. Curtains and curtain rods need to be bought and put up, too. I will be ready to move in on the 28th, but it's going to be a long, hard-fought battle.
Meanwhile, the surly bitch caretaker at my current address is in a snit because I called her on a violation of the Residential Tenancies Act. She felt that by leaving a piece of paper under my door which informed me she would be showing my apartment to prospective tenants Monday-Friday between 9 and 5, she had given me sufficient notice. Imagine her surprise when I informed her that the Act states that every non-emergency entry requires 24 hours' advance notice in writing. What do they expect, with the Act available online? An informed tenant accesses the available resources to protect their rights.
I guess the reason she hasn't found a renter yet in our very hot rental market may have something to do with the two new framed pieces of art I've hung facing the door. The ones I created on my computer and printed off. The ones that warn, in plain English, that this apartment building is infested with MICE.
Evil? Moi? *batting eyelashes*
The wallpaper - well, I learned today that Home Depot and Rona both rent wallpaper steamers. Being a proud Canadian, I'd rather go with Rona. That will have to wait until after my upcoming eye surgery on Thursday, recuperation over the weekend, and the three evening shifts after that. Also due on the 15th is the plumber, to fix my various plumbing issues. So, Groom_Leader and I will steam off the wallpaper and smooth the walls while the plumber plumbs.
The day after plumbing-and-steaming day will be paint purchasing and a thorough, extreme cleaning - there is 4 to 5 years' worth of dust on the ceiling fans, the wall light fixtures, crud and grunge inside cupboards, walls to wash down, etc. Then we will have three days to prime and paint, two of those days with the added assistance of my niece (and maybe her boyfriend). Meanwhile, when I'm not working on the townhouse, I'll be packing. And packing and packing and packing.
Moving day is March 28 - once painting is done, I'll get a steam cleaner in for the carpets, and will pre-clean some of the worst-stained areas with something deadly strong from the store. I'll also be taking a lot of smaller loads over myself, both to reduce total moving crew time and to ensure my preciousest stuff gets there safely. Curtains and curtain rods need to be bought and put up, too. I will be ready to move in on the 28th, but it's going to be a long, hard-fought battle.
Meanwhile, the surly bitch caretaker at my current address is in a snit because I called her on a violation of the Residential Tenancies Act. She felt that by leaving a piece of paper under my door which informed me she would be showing my apartment to prospective tenants Monday-Friday between 9 and 5, she had given me sufficient notice. Imagine her surprise when I informed her that the Act states that every non-emergency entry requires 24 hours' advance notice in writing. What do they expect, with the Act available online? An informed tenant accesses the available resources to protect their rights.
I guess the reason she hasn't found a renter yet in our very hot rental market may have something to do with the two new framed pieces of art I've hung facing the door. The ones I created on my computer and printed off. The ones that warn, in plain English, that this apartment building is infested with MICE.
Evil? Moi? *batting eyelashes*
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Demolition Man(s - and Women, for that matter)
I took possession of my new townhouse on Thursday. On Friday, I had the locks re-keyed so I could be sure no one else had access to my new home. Today, the fun really started!
First, the plumbing repair that wasn't. The home inspector I'd hired told me that the wax seal under the upstairs toilet needed replacing. Fine, my boyfriend does all of his own plumbing, he volunteered to do it for me. Some intense pre-job obsessing later, he was ready to take it on. BUT........
The water shutoff for that toilet is missing a handle. Whoever had repaired that toilet in the past had use Vice-Grips to turn the water off, and had stripped the threads on the fitting. Surprise, surprise, the downstairs toilet's shutoff handle was missing, too. So was the handle on the townhouse's main water shutoff in the furnace room. WTF???????? I will be calling a plumber on Monday. Fortunately, my Dad's lady friend has the number of a good, reasonably-priced one, a fellow who worked construction jobs with dad in the past.
Next - the woman who had lived in the townhouse with her daughter for years was a slob!!!!! The amount of cleaning I will have to do is staggering, she obviously didn't believe that "dust" is also a verb. Not to mention burnt-out light bulbs not replaced, spiderwebs in the corners of rooms, venetian blinds harboring thriving ecosystems of dust mites, stained carpeting, and chipped, grubby walls and doors. She let her daughter paint pictures on the walls and doors of the child's bedroom, FFS!!!!!! Lord help me,. I have to paint over all of it.
Now, the people who occupied this place before Indifferent Single Mother Church Lady were 1) trailertrash, 2) cheap, and 3) obviously on crack. There is not a single "improvement" that has been professionally done - even the laminate was laid by total amateurs. We pulled down a plethora of screwed-to-the-walls pine shelves, a built-in pine corner desk, and at least a zillion wall anchor plugs. We're not done, either - the cheap plastic venetian blinds and their fittings, as well as the (oh, shades of the bad decor of the early 1990s!) balloon valences in both bedrooms, have to be removed. Ugh. It's a damned good thing that Polyfilla is cheap.
Wallpaper - don't get me started! There is really old, really cheap wallpaper and a wallpaper border halfway up the living room walls. My niece ran a scarifier over the wallpaper, then soaked it with a dilute remover solution - and proceeded to scrape off minuscule shreds of wallpaper. It looks like I'll have to rent a steamer to remove it. Niece, however, is a star at pulling wallpaper lath and trim off with a claw hammer. I don't think she realized she had this talent!
The kicker? In addition to the $700.00+ for the plumbing repairs, in addition to the expense and time for the wallpaper steamer, in addition to the necessity of painting the kitchen cabinet doors because they're too shabby for me to live with, there's the thoughtful gift that ISMCL left me in the loft/attic crawl space - a car battery with the top split!
Bloody hell.
First, the plumbing repair that wasn't. The home inspector I'd hired told me that the wax seal under the upstairs toilet needed replacing. Fine, my boyfriend does all of his own plumbing, he volunteered to do it for me. Some intense pre-job obsessing later, he was ready to take it on. BUT........
The water shutoff for that toilet is missing a handle. Whoever had repaired that toilet in the past had use Vice-Grips to turn the water off, and had stripped the threads on the fitting. Surprise, surprise, the downstairs toilet's shutoff handle was missing, too. So was the handle on the townhouse's main water shutoff in the furnace room. WTF???????? I will be calling a plumber on Monday. Fortunately, my Dad's lady friend has the number of a good, reasonably-priced one, a fellow who worked construction jobs with dad in the past.
Next - the woman who had lived in the townhouse with her daughter for years was a slob!!!!! The amount of cleaning I will have to do is staggering, she obviously didn't believe that "dust" is also a verb. Not to mention burnt-out light bulbs not replaced, spiderwebs in the corners of rooms, venetian blinds harboring thriving ecosystems of dust mites, stained carpeting, and chipped, grubby walls and doors. She let her daughter paint pictures on the walls and doors of the child's bedroom, FFS!!!!!! Lord help me,. I have to paint over all of it.
Now, the people who occupied this place before Indifferent Single Mother Church Lady were 1) trailertrash, 2) cheap, and 3) obviously on crack. There is not a single "improvement" that has been professionally done - even the laminate was laid by total amateurs. We pulled down a plethora of screwed-to-the-walls pine shelves, a built-in pine corner desk, and at least a zillion wall anchor plugs. We're not done, either - the cheap plastic venetian blinds and their fittings, as well as the (oh, shades of the bad decor of the early 1990s!) balloon valences in both bedrooms, have to be removed. Ugh. It's a damned good thing that Polyfilla is cheap.
Wallpaper - don't get me started! There is really old, really cheap wallpaper and a wallpaper border halfway up the living room walls. My niece ran a scarifier over the wallpaper, then soaked it with a dilute remover solution - and proceeded to scrape off minuscule shreds of wallpaper. It looks like I'll have to rent a steamer to remove it. Niece, however, is a star at pulling wallpaper lath and trim off with a claw hammer. I don't think she realized she had this talent!
The kicker? In addition to the $700.00+ for the plumbing repairs, in addition to the expense and time for the wallpaper steamer, in addition to the necessity of painting the kitchen cabinet doors because they're too shabby for me to live with, there's the thoughtful gift that ISMCL left me in the loft/attic crawl space - a car battery with the top split!
Bloody hell.
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